SuitabookWindrush Child
Benjamin Zephaniah
- Reading
- Read alongside time to pause after Leonard’s move and after scenes of racism or exclusion. Talk first about his feelings and choices, then distinguish his individual story from the wider history it represents.
- Themes
- Migration and belonging: Leonard leaves Jamaica, joins his father in Britain and works through separation, a new school, friendship and what being British means to him. The narrative presents migration as both difficult and capable of becoming part of a fuller identity; Britain is not portrayed as simply welcoming or wholly rejected.
- Racism and injustice: Leonard faces racist treatment at school and elsewhere, and later encounters denial of British citizenship despite living in Britain for over sixty years. The book takes a critical view of this.
- History through personal narrative: Leonard’s life is used to present the Windrush generation’s experience and the consequences of the Windrush Scandal through one person’s story. The book presents this mainly as information or explanation.
- Worth knowing
- Be ready for painful material involving racism, discrimination, exclusion and the Windrush Scandal. The reported conclusion includes Leonard being denied British citizenship after living in Britain for decades, and the story is described as sometimes heartbreaking.